Looking from Canada to the United States, across Niagara's Horseshoe Falls

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

"The war for tourist bucks", Toronto Sun (July 9, 2007), by Brian Gray

Tourism Minister Jim Bradley's plan to spend 10 million dollars marketing Ontario to people who already live here is a typical Liberal smoke and mirrors waste of money. The goal is to attract tourists from outside our provincial tax jurisdiction, otherwise you're simply moving the same dollars around the same province.

Bradley, who is also the Liberal MPP for St. Catharines, sagely tells the Sun: "With gas prices higher, people maybe more inclined to stay close to home".

Yet, let's remember how Bradley sang a different tune about high gas prices when he was in opposition. When gas was only 0.62/litre , he smugly lectured to the then-governing Tories: "As thousands of tourists visit Ontario this week, they will be faced with the same circumstances facing all motorists in our province: gas price gouging by the major oil companies." (St. Catharines Standard, Aug. 22, 1997)

For years, Bradley and his Liberals made many noisy, unsubstantiated allegations about gas price-fixing. They insisted that gas price regulation was a provincial, not a federal, responsibility. They promised to regulate gas prices, to create a gas-price watchdog, and to lower the provincial gas tax.

Today, with the Liberals in power - and gas hovering at 1.04/litre, mid-July, 2007 - all of their bag-of-hot-air promises have vanished. Sadly, St. Catharines has been stuck with Jim Bradley for 30 years, since the days of disco. He used to be known as '"Gentleman Jim", now, sadly, it's more like 'B.S. Bradley'.